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*Originally posted by Lajawab: *Your commentary was much appreciated and informative, however, for me as a Muslim it still remains a mark on shame upon a people (Ummah) that spans more than half the globe with a following of almost 1.6 billion people and we stood by not being able to openly fight off Russia from its domain...Strategy my a$$, the Muslims should have blindly sided with the Mujahideen and political pressure applied on the Russians to leave or face extinction...
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Face extinction with what? In the 1979-1988 period, the armies of the Muslim world combined paled compared to the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. More to the point, the Soviet Union had sufficient nuclear weapons to exterminate half the world, whilst the Muslim world had virtually none, and certainly had no means to deliver them to the Soviet Union.
Between the Muslim world and the Soviet Union, the only party that had the physical capacity to exterminate the other was the Soviet Union
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This is pathetic MS...We are so defenseless...:( What the heck happened? All the signs of Qiyyamah are coming true...So many Muslims and each one scared...Not from Allah, but what America will do if we don;t side with...The Muslims's free spirit and independence is held hostage at the point of a cruise missile made by McDonnell Douglas...:(
Why did we become so weak? And the mod-Muslims are still not satisfied...They still want us to get rid of our weapons so the Crusaders can really have a field day with our faith, our honor and our respect...
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*Originally posted by Lajawab: *This is pathetic MS...We are so defenseless...:( What the heck happened? All the signs of Qiyyamah are coming true...So many Muslims and each one scared...Not from Allah, but what America will do if we don;t side with...The Muslims's free spirit and independence is held hostage at the point of a cruise missile made by McDonnell Douglas...:(
Why did we become so weak? And the mod-Muslims are still not satisfied...They still want us to get rid of our weapons so the Crusaders can really have a field day with our faith, our honor and our respect...
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Well, if you look at the beginning of the 17th century, the Muslims were arguably the most powerful people on the planet. There were two Muslim states, friendly to each other, that probably comprised the most powerful nations in the world., and included most of the world's Muslim population. The Ottoman Empire, which represented conservative Islam, and the Mughal Empire, which though incredibly powerful, embodied the worst elements of today's "mod Muslims".
The fall of the two is very different. The Mughal Empire, which existed on the basis of comprimised Islam values (they were VERY liberal about sexual morals, etc), disintegrated, for a range of reasons. Shah Jehan bankrupted the nation making the Taj Mahal, Emperor Aurangzeb's draconian policies towards Hindus and Shias provoke many rebellions, whilst subsequent weak rulers could not stem the tide of Muslim states breaking away as the state's ability to enforce its authority waned. Eventually, these new Muslim states did not really collaborate and instead tried to play the British off against each other.... leading to their takeover, one by one, by Britain. The disaster that came is that Britain witheld industrialisation from taking hold in India, making all the peoples of the area, including the Muslims, incapable of competing with the industrialised West and made them economically and militarily inferior.
The Ottoman Empire's story, however, is the story of the heart of the Muslim world, and how the Muslims fell to where they are today. It's a combination of society breaking away from holding fast to Islam, of poor leadership, and of misguided ulema hampering the nation rather than leading it to glory.
As I mentioned, during the 1600s the Ottoman Empire was the most powerful nation in Europe and the Mediterranean. However, its strength (like America's today) came from its economic might. The Ottoman Empire sat on the trade route between Europe and Asia and made huge revenue from taxing traders in its land. This money was used to build the Empire and maintain its army and navy. By contrast, Europe's economy was based mainly on trade.
When the Europeans managed to circumnavigate Africa, they discovered that this would enable them to trade with Asia without having to pay the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire found itself coming under economic hardship, whilst the morals of its citizens chipped away and corruption, etc, became rife. The morale standard eventually degraded to such an extent that homosexuality was pretty rife by the beginning of the 1900s!!!
The bonds of Muslim brotherhood were being weakened too, as in many lands Arabs found themselves being oppressed by Turks (a hatred that lasts till today amongst many). The collapsing economy made it difficult for the Ottomans to maintain their military might, and from the 1700s to the mid 1800s, they suffered defeat after defeat, surrendering huge swathes of Muslim lands to Russia.
By the 1800s, the Ottoman Empire was considered the Sick Man of Europe. Its army was so weak that it relied often on British and French support against Russia, such as in the Crimean War of the 1850s. European support came at a price - the Ottomans were forced to make many concessions to Britain and France to avoid being overwhelmed by Russia. For example, European quarters were built in Istanbul (complete with bars, etc). The Ottomans were forced to give autonomy to Lebanon's Christians, and many more.
Compounding the Muslim world problems was the fact that as Istanbul found it could not finance the maintainance of its authority, all over the Empire, regional rulers broke away from Ottoman rule, and often were promptly gobbled up by Europeans. For example, in 1831, the Bey of Al-Jazeer (the ruler of Algeria), who acted independently of Istanbul despite nominal loyalty to the Khalif there, slapped the French Ambassador across the face with a fly swatter. The Ambassador left, and returned with an army to avenge the insult. The Ottoman Empire was unable to afford to defend Algeria, and so began over 130 years of brutal French rule.
In the mid 1800s, a number of Sultans recognised that economically and militarily, the Muslim world (by that stage really only consisting of the Ottoman Empire, the remaining Muslim lands mainly colonised by Europe) lagged well behind Europe and needed to catch up. But here, misguided conservative ulema dogged almost every move. Even something as inoccuous as ordering that the army should have a uniform was fought by the ulema. The scholars decreed that a characteristic of the armies of the kuffar was that they wore uniforms, and Muslims should not emulate the kuffar. A similar stance was taken when the Sultan tried to introduce the bayonet.
A more critical problem was that the Sultans recognised the need to bring the Industrial Revolution to the Ottoman Empire. At that stage, almost all education was madrassah based. Students would get a very firm grasp of Islam, as well as and education in other classical madrassah subjects such as mathematics and philosophy. However, these skills did not equip society for Industrialisation. One of the Sultans attempted to order the madrassahs to lower the Islam content so that students could also learn sciences and engineering, but this was opposed by ulema who did not want to change curriculums that had proven reliable for centuries.
Whilst some progress was eventually made, it was too little too late. By 1914, the Ottomans were still not a fully industrialised society, the Empire was one of the poorest countries in Europe, the armed forces were poorly equipped.
The lost opportunity is nearly scandalous. In 1850, Japan was absolutely primitive in comparison to the Ottomans (Japan was virtually a 1st century society in terms of technology, economy, etc). By 1905, Japan was one oof the most powerful countries in the world and had inflicted a crushing defeat on Russia, one of the world's most powerful nations. If only the Ottomans could have followed the Japanese example :(
However, all was still not lost in 1914. After all, progress had been made into modernising the Ottoman society, and with German help and weapons, the Ottoman army was being trained to be a modern fighting force.
World War 1 was the nail in the coffin to Muslim might. The decision to join the war on the German side against the Ottoman's traditional ally, the British, proved to be disasterous. The bulk of the Muslim military strength was sent on a disasterous winter campaign against Russia in 1914, where it was roundly defeated. Only Russia's revolution stopped a disasterous Russian takeover of the Empire.
Despite brave and stubborn resistance by Muslim troops in Iraq and Gallipoli, British and French troops forced the Sultan into accepting a humiliating peace that included putting Istanbul, the capital of the Muslim world, into a city under "International control", and ceding Palestine. Large areas of Turkey were simply given away to Greece.
Mustafa Ataturk rallied the remaining (now exclusively Turkish) troops of the Ottoman Army and forced Britain and France to revise the peace settlement to be more in Turkey's favour. However, Ataturk had no interest in Islam, and made no effort to reclaim the lost lands nor restore Muslim might.
By this stage, the whole of the Muslim world was militarily insignficant, divided, rules by outsiders and most importantly, economically underdeveloped preventing us from being able to challenge the Western nations that to this day dominate the world.
What the heck happened? All the signs of Qiyyamah are coming true…So many Muslims and each one scared…Not from Allah, but what America will do if we don;t side with…The Muslims’s free spirit and independence is held hostage at the point of a cruise missile made by McDonnell Douglas…
That makes so much sense…